Culture is to people what water is to fish. It is everywhere, it is necessary, we use it to propel ourselves forward and navigate. We can’t move or function without it…but we don’t notice it. In fact, we won’t notice it at all until there is change.

Everyone experiences culture but most have a difficult time recognizing it or describing it. I was working with a group of Alaska Native leaders as they were trying to define and identify “culture” as one of their core values. One of the leaders stood up and said, “This is just what we do. It isn’t something we can define.”

Directly after high school I moved to Mexico for a while. When I returned, my first job was as a delivery driver for an auto body supply store. In a conversation with the owner about the differences between cultures, he made one of those I-know-what-I’m-talking-about-because-I’m-the-owner statements, “America has no culture.” End of that conversation.

Despite what he said, as leaders, it is important that we are able to ‘see’ our own cultures and learn to intentionally build and maintain ones that best serve our organizations.

What Culture Is and Why You Don’t Get It

Anthropologically, culture is often compared to an onion. It has many layers:

The Outer Layer: On the outside of the onion there is what most people describe as culture: The way people dress, language, what they eat, how they dance, etc. This is what most people mean when they say culture. In classic, anthropology language these are called, “cultural artifacts.” This is the surface of culture.

The Middle Layer: Beneath there is a middle layer (or layers) that has to do with what is understood as appropriate or expected behavior and the values that help guide those behaviors. This can be things like how you greet each other, how genders are related to, class differences and so on.

The Core Layer: The core is where Key Beliefs or the shared world view reside. An early instructor once described this as a “Truth Box.” It’s a place where we ‘just know’ that certain things are true about life and reality. We place them in our “Truth Box” and never reconsider or examine them.

Culture at Work

Each workplace forms its own culture to varying degrees of strength and identity. It is easy to pick out that “construction workers dress like/talk like….” and “office workers dress like/talk like….” but this is focusing mostly on the Outer Layer. The inner layer has to do with professional ethics, work ethic, whether or not people trust each other, celebrate or compete with each other, etc. The core layer is the key one: This is where we discover what deep beliefs look like:

• Beliefs about abundance or scarcity: If they get theirs – will we get ours? Or we are creators of wealth and value?
• Beliefs about the value of employees: Replaceable and costly? Or family and priceless?
• Beliefs about our role with our customers: Is our role to serve them? Or to fleece them?
• Beliefs about workplace relationships: Life is about survival of the fittest? Or we can build and grow and become better people together?

These are core concepts. My bias is evident. Likely as you read through them you found yourself reacting positively or negatively to different statements. This reaction reflects your core beliefs.

The Unstoppable Force: How We Are Enculturated and What Happens When We Rely on Accidents

Like water to the fish, culture is pervasive and omnipresent in our workplaces. Unlike water to a fish, leaders have the opportunity to be shapers and crafters of their culture. New employees are formally enculturated when they attend new employee orientations. However, as anyone with job experience knows, what you are taught formally may or may not match up with what is experienced.

New employees learn to watch closely for things like:

• Exceptions to the rules: Is it possible? Who gets to and how?
• Relationships with authority: Is smiling compliance expected? Is management absent or present? Easily manipulated, rigid or open to input?
• Ethics: Do our co-workers reinforce values and standards in their practices or do they support hiding and covering up?
• Innovation: Encouraged? Squelched?

Taming the Juggernaut: Culture Wins Every Time – So Make Friends

You can ignore culture but it doesn’t ignore you. If you try to initiate a change that your organization doesn’t believe in you’ll fail. If you try to get different results through using the same practices you’ll fail. If you want openness but can’t handle tough feedback you’ll fail.

There are lots of ways to fail.

But there are lots of ways to win. You can’t fight culture. It is self-defeating to deny it. So you need to accept it, learn to work with it and learn to shape it.

If your workplace culture was a religion:

• What would be the Cardinal Sins?
• What would be the Core Virtues?
• What are the Five Key Practices that everyone should do?
• What is your origin story? Why were you created and for what purpose does your organization or team exist?
• Are you happy with your responses to these questions? Would your co-workers agree with your answers? What does that tell you about your culture?

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Finding the Handles: Six Ways Culture is Created, Reinforced and Changed